Tag Archives: self-sufficient

Now that she’s arrived, was there anything else to it? A life summoned itself and paused for a while. Yes, there was always a pause, Larisa noticed; a breather in between the chapters.

She never imagined her death, never was the type to bear the hubris of planning her own funeral. Like weddings, death demanded metaphors. To capture oneself, to be summarized, direly: But how can one not be so many things at once? Besides, the way she felt, ceremonies strived for a shared experience; not a centralized meditation that treated the self as the object of all other events; that separated and sought how different one was from the rest, taking for granted the universality of it all. She didn’t have the ego for it.

Larisa had been living for others, certainly: a symptom assigned mostly to her gender. In her family, she had witnessed the earlier generations of women lose themselves in sacrificial love. For the sake of their children, their husbands, their aging parents, they carried on serving; until they found themselves having a hard time remembering what they themselves had wanted, originally, all along. Remember those days? How many times she’d heard the mournful reminiscence in a woman’s voice: Those days! What happened since then, Larisa wondered, herself still a young girl; what force of obscurity slithered itself in between and demanded for a retraction, or a delay at least.

Definitely, she wouldn’t lose the sight of her own purpose, she thought! Yet, the loneliness came scratching at the backdoor, becoming louder as she compared the things other women claimed as accomplishments: dramatic courtships, the victory in which meant expensive weddings and doting husbands, as one could only hope; then, the automatic events of pregnancy and nest acquiring (building, building, gaining weightiness); the demands of a chosen lifestyle, or in the cases of the less fortunate — merely survivals. Every woman she knew had leapt into all of it without ever questioning the reality of her expectations. How could their husbands — the equally unknowing human beings with a whole other set of expectations imposed onto them — keep up? They too, when young, once dreamt of following the call of the world’s magnificence. But lives demanded to be defined by success; and what others made of success — was not at all what she’d imagined.

There was love, of course. There would always be love. Beyond her own anxiety and self-judgement, she could see that a life was only as successful as the love one projected. Still, in the beginning, it was loneliness that determined the pursuit of it; and loneliness made things more urgent, non-negotiable and somehow crucial. It conformed the shape of love, so it could fit into the missing parts; make-up for the previous mistakes of others; fix, mold, make it better. Because in a person, there were always parts missing: from too much love, or not enough of it, from the prototypes of our lovers (god bless our parents!), who couldn’t possibly step up to what love was meant to be, as she thought of it: all forgiving, non-discriminating, fluid.

And what about the needs? One had to have needs. It was a path of nature. Larisa found the balance between the self-fulfillment of those needs and the ones she could hand over to another — unpoetic and stressful. So, she chose to handle all of them on her own; not with any sense of confrontation or showmanship, but with the esteem of self-reliance. And surely, Larisa thought, it would only elevate the love. Surely, if one handled the demands of one’s survival with this much grace, there would be more room for the beauty and the compassion; the reflection of the self in the suffering of others and the almost rapturous feeling of knowing exactly how it felt to be another; for such a love lacked fear, and it could take up spaces with its tide-like tongues, and whenever it retracted, one only had to wait for its return. In light, in easiness: What surrender!

Larisa wasn’t really sure how or where, in the self, the unease began. On that day — a day unmarked by any significance — she’d gone into a church. With her head bowed and eyes half-closed, she didn’t seek answers or help, only a space from which to observe the ways her thoughts moved, sometimes birthing moods, sometimes — nothingness; and she watched herself alter, even while in stillness, mind creating matter; thoughts becoming intentions; and she cast the net into the endless vagueness and brought them back into the very is-ness of her: Into what she believed the most.

This church appeared make-shift, marking a spot where, under an influence of a former fanatical thought, an ancient Russian cathedral had been burnt down over half a century ago. A modest wooden building, unheated, undecorated, in a shape of a polygon, sat in the shadowy corner of a square. The country was living through an era of resurrected gods and revalidated heros, often dead by now, having been taken for granted for the sake of simplifying a former common ambition. Things crumbled. Alliances turned chaotic. And when everyone woke up to amended history — figures worthy of worship long gone and nearly forgotten — a common panic ensued. For even if it weren’t the ego that made a people matter, it had to be their spirit; a common memory of a civilization.

The roads had frozen overnight; and at first, she had snuck-in to thaw out her stiff toes. She purchased a candle at the door, mostly out of habit. She didn’t even know how that particular ceremony worked. Two side altars, with figures of crucified saints, sat against the walls of the church, opposite of each other. Standing there for a while, still and unnoticed, she studied the other women who moved like ghosts across the dirt floor. Everyone was fully clothed. She looked down at her feet and shifted: There was little hope of her finding much warmth there. Still, she stayed. She paused, and in the growing shadows of her memories, she waited.

Older women in head scarves, with histories written across their tired faces, were crossing themselves at their chosen mantels. Some moved their lips in prayer, repeatedly lowering their heads in a manner that came after so much practice, one was no longer moved by it. What misfortunes had brought them here? Loss required humility, otherwise one was consumed with fury. Her country had lived through tragedies with a numbness of habit. Resignation was often advised by the elderlies, yet she found herself incompetent at it.

She took another look at the suspended saints and walked over to the side alter with a Christ whose eyes were semi-open. A little girl in a rabbit fur hat clung to the leg of her grandmother. Larisa looked down at the child and without raising her hand, moved her fingers inside the mitten. The child, sensing an interaction, got shy and clutched the old woman’s leg with more zealousness, for children often appeared overwhelmed with the energy of living. Their egos struggled with the life force they had been granted (what were they supposed to do, to be? how did they matter); and juxtaposed against the even flow of hours — one’s magnificence was only seen in silence, she believed — the egos expanded; for surely, they had to become something better.

I personally wear it like the lavender-colored pashmina of cashmere and silk that I keep in the backseat of my car, at all times. Sometimes, I loop it around my arm while walking. Too warm for it right now, I think; but then, you never know: I might need it later. Other times, I show up all wrapped in it, and I walk by my lover’s side peaceful, perfectly sufficient, but separate. It’s my second skin: within his reach — for whatever exploratory touch he may have the habit for — but then again, it’s a barrier. A nature’s boundary. It makes up — me. It contains me: My silence. And no matter the power of empathy, no matter the reach of compassion, there is no way I would give it up, for good.

There are times when I let my companions wrap themselves in the other side of my silence, but only if they have the capacity to share my step and to adopt my pace, for a while. Most of the time, it is best shared with those that have seen me grow up. Sure, many loves have seen me change, learn, transform (because once I make up my mind to be with them — I go all in). But only the selected few — the sacred handful — have kept tabs on me for years. Many such silent walks we have shared by now, all so specifically perfect because they haven’t demanded a description. And the accumulation of these shared silences — is what makes up our intimacy.

I watch some get unnerved by my comfortable tendency for silence; and when I tell them I was born as decidedly the only child my parents planned to have, they say:

“Oh, but of course! Your silence makes total sense!”

I prefer to refrain from saying:

“But what do you mean?!”

Instead, I let them cradle their opinions, projecting their discomfort and their sadly absurd need to be right. Because a “What do you mean?!” always leaves an aftertaste of despair in my mouth. (And I am never really too desperate to name everything by its title; even it that title seems to be most truthful in the moment but only turns out to be best deserved, in the end. So, I would rather stick to metaphors. Or, I would rather leave it — to silence; leave it — in the mood to dot-dot-dot.)

But it does mesmerize me to watch others, in their silence. Most of the time, they aren’t my beloveds, but utter strangers incapable of handling solitude at all. I study their fiddling away with their radios for the best-suited background track. They click away at the buttons of their phones — their mobilized egos that promise to grant them a life — for some distracting stories in which they can tangle themselves up; as I tangle myself up — in silence. So discombobulated they are with their aloneness, so unsettled by the sudden lack of diversions from the truth, they reach, they grapple, they grasp.

There are others, much lovelier in my eyes; and in their silence, they are still curious. Surely, they must be loved, by someone, I always assume. They must be waited for, by others, at home. But in the moment of their solitude, they seem to possess the talent for temporary surrender. They sit in silence with an open mind, a ready fascination; as if the most unexpected gives them the biggest thrill. And it does make me wonder if their esteem — this comfortable wearing of their skin — comes from being so loved; comes from being waited for.

Because having a home to come back to — gives them a firmer ground to stand on. Because homecoming is always a deserving point of reference.

And then, there are the very few that dwell in silence permanently. It may not be because they are best equipped to deal with life’s ambiguity. But in the acceptance of their solitude, I find a grace so powerful, so contagious, it makes me want to interrupt it and say:

“But how do you do that?”

And I used to think that such ability for being had to have come from a healthy life and a kind past; from parents that wait for their children at Christmas with their favorite meals, loving anecdotes, and with boardgames in front of going fireplaces; with their childhood bedrooms still intact and photographs lining up into chronologies of their lives on hallway walls.

But not until I myself have learned to wear my silence without any secret desire to surrender it have I realized that it also sometimes comes from having lost too much to want to hold onto it. Because it gets too heavy, with time: all that loss and all that seeming injustice. So, I have learned let go of it, so I would never bring it into my new loves (because how can a love not fail with all that baggage in tow?).

Instead, these days, I wrap myself in silence as if it were the lavender-colored pashmina of cashmere and silk that I keep in the backseat of my car — within my reach — at all times. And I walk — alone.

And if ever walking with another love wrapped in the other side of it, through the shared silence, I tell him:

I had a beautiful girl in my car the other night, and I could’ve driven like that — forever!

‘Cause here is the thing: I like it when people ask me for help. Nope, scratch that: I like it when MY people ask me for help. Because just like me, my people are self-sufficient and competent; so proud, so beautiful — quite the badasses of the human race! — and they act as if they’re permanently alright. The fact that youth and ambition is still on our side makes that last illusion believable. We still have that strut of the young, their health, endurance and strength; so even if life serves us up some uncertainty, we lap it up like a juicy, slightly sandy oyster:

“Slurp! Delicious!”

Some of my people — blossom in uncertainty. They are the most fearless of the bunch, dwelling in a higher dimension, yet mercifully extending their hand from up there when I am ready to expand yet again, to grow. But even if I’m not ready — it’s alright, they reassure me. Really: It is! Go at your own pace and don’t try to become anyone else but yourself. Because there are enough lies in life, so you better be in control of your own fiction.

For others, uncertainty may set off some emotional white noises: doubt, lack of confidence, and very rarely, a sliver of self-pity. And I get it: I ain’t judgin’! Because my people have had an earful of my own bullshit, yet they have loved — and even worshiped — me despite of it. So, they bitch and moan for a lil’ bit; and we all go to sleep, eventually, tangled up in each other’s limbs. Early in the morning though, I wake up next to empty pillows with imprints of their beloved heads — and they will already be onto the next thing: Gone. To the next, higher dimension! They are so self-sufficient and proud, permanently alright; forever beautiful. Such — are my people!

So, when under the influence of an impulse, one of them suddenly turns and says:

“Hey, V? Can you give me a lift?”

“FUCK YEAH!” I go. “I thought you’d never ask.”

And so, they get in.

I don’t often get passengers: It is the style of this city to be more solitary in larger spaces. The larger the space — the more solitary you find yourself. Yet, we demand space around here, get blue in the face when we don’t get it; and Shiva forbid a boundary gets crossed — we foam at our mouths, outraged at such a crime! But the geography is large enough to accommodate us all (us, our egos, what we think we deserve or have been robbed of — and all that personal space!).

Most, however, are still solitary when driving: So solitary they forget that the rest of us can see them through the bubbles of their glass walls. As if invisible, they insist on negotiating with ambiguous gestures: honking or revving up the engine, or flipping their version of a “fuck you” once they are at a safe distance apart from their often unknowing offender. And it would all be quite funny, if it weren’t so dangerous. Because that’s how isolation is — dangerous. And sad.

And so, they get in — my people — taking over my space. Willingly, breathlessly, I surrender: I always have too much of it — this fucking space, in this fucking city! My people get in, buckle up, adjust their seats.

My boys are always taller than me. They need more room for those athletic legs I would rather be wearing around my belt line. So, they shift back and around, get comfortable and buzzy with excitement, like 5-year-olds after a camping trip. They start opening my compartments and examining into my corners. And if they ask me too many questions, I laugh and kiss them — on those tense foreheads, or directly on their dry lips. I dig out my car’s never-studied manual and thump it against their athletic legs:

“Here is a bedtime story for you! Happy?”

While the girls — those lovely kittens that smell like lavender and honey — they curl up, with their feet tucked under; some even recline and attempt to go to sleep. Others, the more statuesque or the ones who are freer in their bodies, stretch out, putting their prettily pedicured toes onto my dashboard, and they roll down their windows. And, oh, how I love when they take their hair down, releasing more lavender and honey into the air! And it flips and flies around in the wind, like a firebird flapping its magical wings.

So, when the beautiful girl of the other night had climbed inside, I was immediately breathless with attention. She smelled like a drawer of essential oils and exotic spices. Being one of those brown types — blunt and beautiful, so strong! — her sex tempted me with myths from a very foreign continent. Because where she came from, women — survive. They are capable. Capable of carrying their men on their backs, across deserts and blistering rocks. Capable of surviving wars, to live and tell the horrors with their skin. Capable of outrunning, outdoing, outhunting, outsmarting. And when they happen to surrender under their men’s care, they merely humor the rules written centuries before them.

And so, she got in: adjusted her seat, paid a compliment to my space. (Take it: All this fucking space, in this fucking city!) Readily, she began laughing at my flippancy and temper; sighing when finding me poetic or poignant. A couple of times, she sharply exhaled at my mercurial driving habits.

“Ow! I didn’t realize we’d be doing this!” she chuckled in that teasing manner that only women from her very foreign continent can do.

So, I started a joke: Three minutes or five blocks before each turn, I would shoot her a gaze habitual for the women of my own foreign continent and say:

“So… Um, we’ll be making a right turn — eventually. Get ready!”

And she would laugh. Oh, how she would laugh, suddenly getting lighter from having to carry her man on her back, across deserts and blistering rocks; from having to survive! She would tease me, so quick with her comebacks; and not even know that, in that hour, I too was asking for help.

“So… Um, we’ll be making a left — eventually. Are you ready?”

That night, we didn’t need to tell the tales of each other’s suffering.

We could’ve just driven like that, forever: self-sufficient and competent — so proud, so beautiful, so strong! — and permanently alright.

“I want… I want… What is it that I want?” she was squeezing herself into the corner of a vintage, peach-colored chair that couldn’t have been a better throne to her feminine divinity.

She scanned her eyes across the tiny room she’d made her home, as if the answer were somewhere around there: Was it under this tiny bed that she’d surrounded with her art and nature? Or had it fallen out of these mismatching picture frames in various degrees of hanging on and leaning against the walls, as if Frida Kahlo herself had been living, working, pacing here? Had she slipped it, by a forgetful accident, into the unfinished pack of cigarette on her windowsill — the only visible sign of her insomnia and self-destruction, committed in the name of the departed, then turned back into her art; her nature.

“I want to be adored! Because I — I adore!”

This entire evening I had been watching this face — and all that hair — and her gentle grace; and I had been wondering: Was I just like this, in my own youth? Or did I possess more corners: All anxiety about my self-sufficiency and my self-enough-ness?

I’ve arrived here from a harder history, you see. For centuries, it had been unforgiving to our women’s youth and tenderness. Back where I came from, we worshiped our men, but only behind the closed doors of our bedrooms. For the rest of the day, it was a nation filled with female fighters, women-survivors –hustlers — who assumed enemies in every living soul (especially other women, younger and more tender) and who are most content when standing in breadlines.

But by now, I had paid my dues around here. I had suffered and survived the often ungraceful — and sometimes undignified — existence of an immigrant. I had done my share of standing in different lines to get approved as worthy; only to rush myself back to the university library and learn at double the speed, just so that I could be more than that: Just so I could be equal. And I worked. I worked hard, harder than most of my colleagues, American or foreign-born, like me. And only behind the closed doors of my bedroom would I worship my men: For the rest of the day, I was just an Amazon, refusing to let them in on any of my softness.

“I want to be adored,” she repeated, then looked in my direction. Had I seen it laying around her artist’s quarters, by any chance: This adoration that she deserved and was willing to return ten-fold?

“You know?” she asked, then didn’t wait for my answer and said, “You do know.”

My comrades and enemies had so far been unanimous at calling me out on my generosity. In my motha’s fashion, I tend to grant it upfront, as if to back up my name with it. My name: Truth. (Or Faith, depending on which language you speak, or whom you ask around here.)

But even that has altered a little bit with age and cynicism: I am slightly more withdrawn these days; more careful. Because I have yet to raise a child, so I cannot give it all away. And because I myself haven’t finished dreaming yet, so I need my strength. Because these days, if a lover’s departure must be easy at all, it is only if I hadn’t lost myself in him. So, I take my time now. I only meet my people half-way. And I wait: I wait to see if I am — to them — indeed, the adored one, too.

Some souls though! They still know how to draw it out of me: this uncensored generosity, this kindness that hangs in the back of my first name, like the middle initial “V” by which I had been called for most of my life (in all languages). And she — the soul resembling the past child in me and the future one, at the same time — had been like this from the first embrace she’d once decided to grant me. Never once had I caught myself wondering if I was going out too far on the limb, for her sake. Because I knew that her need — was not all consuming; that I wouldn’t lose myself in it (even though, I’d much rather, at times). And in her case, my generosity felt returned ten-fold: The more I gave, the more it replenished me.

So, despite the exhaustion (that this late at night begins to feel like defeat), I had shown up to her home. Other women had come and gone already. I could tell by the variety of the pink shades of lipstick they had left of champagne glasses. A couple were in the midst of departing as soon as I arrived:

“Here! You look like you need a lot of space,” they seemed to be saying while peeling on their coats, and sweater, and ponchos, and shawls.

And I did. I did need (even though I had come here only to give). I immediately dominated her bed. I took over her library, dreaming of the day I could find my own name leaning on it, sideways. And after the last woman departed, I took over the kitchen too: Putting away the disorder, just so in the morning, she would find a clean slate.

She chirped behind me — my darling sparrow! — about whether on not to discard this aging chunk of cheese, or whether or not to dismiss this old lover. Occasionally, I would look back — at that face and all that hair — and wonder: Was I just like this, in my own youth?

But then, suddenly, I blurted out:

“Did the other women bring you food?” My words came out commanding and little bit too loud. She got silent. I landed:

“Oh my! So sorry! I’m so sorry!” Wiping my hands on the towel with force, like all the women in my family do, I gushed: “I sound like my motha. I’m so sorry!”

But her face showed no evidence of having been undermined or offended.

Instead, she rather seemed tickled by this hard softness of mine — an underbelly she must’ve suspected long ago (or why else would she decide to grant me her embrace?). She was in the midst of being adored — by me — and she knew it. She adored it.

And I, suddenly finding myself standing out on a limb, didn’t mind this incomparable generosity of mine: Because it was already replenishing me, ten-fold.

She was beautiful as shit, and very well-endowed, in her humanity. But the one thing that had made me fall for the creature — head first against the tiled floor of an empty pool (SMACK!) — was her ability to always say what she meant and to say it with the precision of a sniper: (POW!)

There was a gap though — a space where she lingered while choosing her words carefully and squinting her dark African eyes at her speaking opponents. Half a generation older than me and so many exotic heritages apart, she had patience — in spades. So, while I would be stepping on toes of the speaker — some over-read academic whose fear of our female flesh would make him work overtime at spewing out big words with which he hoped to dominate and conquer — while I would be wedging in my objections and stuttering with my youthful wrath (and with having so much to prove!), my girl would just hold there. She would hold her fucking ground, my brothers and sisters — like Joan of Arc before her tribunal — and she wouldn’t fucking move!

It was so bloody impressive — it gave me a hard-on! It was like watching one of those big cats at their hunting game: You know better than to intrude, because you suddenly become aware that that cat’s evolution has not been contaminated by a century of junk food, bad decisions and hedonistic behaviors utilized to shut out its guilty conscience. The cat is on top of its game: It’s perfectly equipped — on point! — and it never has to work hard at proving jack shit. And you know, for certain, that when the time is right for that one outrageous pounce — meant to capture, never to just tease — the poor victim won’t have enough time to even utter a prayer.

Well, it was like that, with this girl. She would watch the poor sucker who overcompensated his boner with words, words, words — BULLSHIT! — and she would seem so chill. Her glorious brown body appeared perfectly relaxed. There was no verbal jab in the world that could make her shiver with wrath; no words capable of making her lose her composure; or even shift your weight. Okay, maybe — may-be! — occasionally she would raise one eyebrow; but even that was barely noticeable. You had to be in dire love with her to notice that change. Which I was. So — I did.

And when she would pounce — OH, LORD JESUS! — it was so much fun to watch! If the asexual academic had been presumptuous at all about his vocabulary and degrees, the moment my girl unleashed: She destroyed the fucker. Because you couldn’t tell by her youthful face, which she insisted on wearing without any make-up, but she’d had years of education and a lifetime of reading to back her up. She studied language for a living, working as an editor at every publishing house with its focus on radical writers: female and foreign and black! (FUCK!) And just for fun, on weekends, when others got busy shifting around their patio furniture for barbecues in Brooklyn — she wrote poetry.

Some shifted the mundane — she displaced the real.

And she would win. Always! Because she wasn’t too hung up on the meaning of words. Language, to her, was meant to be played with. Otherwise, it was all dead. So, true to that same feline fashion of hers, she played a gentle tug o’ war with concepts — tapping them, scratching the surface, or sinking her fangs into their gist — like a bored cat amusing itself with a caught prey before feasting on it.

Don’t get me wrong: She had her truths. Better than that: She WAS all truth! Love, dignity, sex and ethics — those were non-negotiable. Not a thing to play with! But words themselves — those little rodents and birds — were way too much fun to not fuck with.

Back then, I had once confused a man for the love of my life and I worked so hard on earning him. At first, I tried on my ultra-feminine version: All high heels, and eye-liner, and ruffled skirts that carefully ended at my knees. I thought:

“Maybe he would love me more that way! Maybe if I’d waxed, tamed my eyebrows, painted my nails in pretty pink; if I spoke with Americanized inflections and curtsied when he picked me up at Grand Central. MAYBE!”

But after a year of still not being enough — of all that uncertainty and self-doubt — I began forgetting that I always hated make-up, especially in pink; and that I treading daintily — just wasn’t my style. So, I gave myself a boy cut, loaded my closet with flats, white tank tops and tight jeans; and began taking the train into Manhattan thrice a week.

One day, my girl and I had stepped out onto Madison Ave, to do some hunting. It was one of those spring days that breathed down New Yorkers’ neck with warm air and smells of budding cherry trees — but the sun had yet to come out. We strutted southbound. My girl lead the way. Despite the promise of spring, she had zipped-up her hoody; and not tempted for a second to absorb the one New York season that reminds its natives as to why they choose to suffer there for the rest of the year, she hurriedly strutted to our decided destination.

A Nuevo-Rican had come from behind us at a pedestrian crossing and studied our asses, in creepy silence; and when he realized my girl was one hot number underneath that zipped-up hoody, he began to whine, nasally:

“Ooh, mami!”

“Fuck you!” my girl shot him down over her shoulder and stepped off the curb, long before the light had changed in our favor. POW!

Then:

“So, what was your definition of ‘forgiveness’?” Just like that, she was back to me. She was back — with me. MINE! I’d been out of breath for thirteen blocks by now: from trying to catch up to her, like that poor Nuevo-Rican doubling over behind us, at the street light. Not waiting for my answer, she resumed:

“Forgiveness — is like courage: It is only committed for your own sake.”

“Forgiveness is like courage,” I repeated in a half-whisper, as if asking for her hand in marriage.

“NO!” she threw over her shoulder again, like a fuck-you to those who were unable to catch up. “Forgiveness IS courage.”

And off she went: strutting, leaping, pouncing and leading the way, half a generation ahead of me and through strange, exotic histories in between; running every red light and giving me the most generous go-ahead of my life.

First of all, it’s the bloody desert out there today! Look at it. The sun has swept off the last of yesterday’s clouds to return the sky to that dreamy blue I had seen only on this coast; and give it a couple of hours, I’ll be basking in it, naked. (Ah, but I ain’t telling you where: It’s my secret spot.)Secondly, since his departure, my own comrades and beloved hearts — and all of my small world’s children — have swooped in, dusted me off (for I have not only bit the dust in this fall — I fuckin’ made a meal of it!) and have been taking turns serving me cups of hot tea to melt away my midnight shivers.

“You’re a’right,” they tell me. They always tell me, never ask. Not that they’re ever surprised by my strength or resilience; or my refusal to lead an ordinary life.

“It’s not becoming — for a woman like you!” one of my comrades commented on my tears the other day, in his laconic, Tony Soprano-esque way. (SHIT. Can’t an Amazon get a break?! Nyet, apparently.)

“Always an inspiration,” uttered my East Coast angel before departing from me after this weekend’s visit. She herself is far from shabby when it comes to the quality of her sought life; and soon enough, she’ll return that inspiration with a single postcard from some exotic coast with gorgeous brown people and white sand. Not too shabby.

In my blunt Russian-ness, I must admit: I am not really the pining type. Nyet, I definitely don’t pine much. So, okay, I’ll mourn the loss of a love while rummaging through my bookshelves for like-minded words. I may even dwell in nostalgia a bit. But even that — is more of a Russian thing: I’m just another Olga, wanting to get to Moscow. (Chekhov, comrades! Check that Chekhov: He knew a thing or two about humanity.)

Perhaps, being an only child had something to do with it: for as long as the memory of my young self spans, I was always perfectly self-sufficient and often in preference for my solitude. Considering my parents’ occupations (father was an officer, mother — a social butterfly), they left me to my own devices quite often and willingly. And if ever one of them wanted to go parental on my ass and demonstrate how to do something, in response, they got my very assertive:

“MYSELF.”

According to motha, it was the first word I learned, and obviously — it was my favorite. Yep: While other infants were taking the easier, more natural to their tongues routes and learning to call out for their parents, I was already self-asserting. To make this tale of V’s childhood even more poignant, I spoke of “MYSELF” in its masculine conjugation. (Unlike in the English language, in Russian one must conjugate every word in a sentence; which makes our tongue quite difficult to navigate. Try navigating Moscow, for Lenin’s sake: Nothing we do is easy!)

When it came to my early life romances, I was a late bloomer. Always a bookworm, in all honesty, I found the characters in my novels much more interesting than boys. Between that and the adventures promised to me at the time by the Communist Party, the world appeared to be more tempting of an adventure than another single human being. Here, I wonder if my men ever even had a chance, considering they had to compete with the entire planet. But when my first Russian boyfriend announced he was interested “in seeing other people”, a month later, I won a full scholarship for my pre-collegiate studies in the United States. He had other people to see — I had other places to be. (I hear he lives in a hamlet now, married to a milkmaid and working for the “collective farm”. Mazel tov, darlin’.)

In the history of my womanhood, I’ve treated every break-up as an opportunity to grow. It’s kind of the way it flows in Motha Nature, don’t you think, my comrades? When something old expires, it makes room for something — or someone — new. And the more I live — the more losses I suffer — the quicker that interchange happens.

It’s as if I’ve become more connected to my own intuition; and I’m able to hear the voices off all other opportunities the world has to offer, no matter how loud the moaning of my ego and heart may be. So, during this currently happening ache, there is a somewhat habitual thrill about everything new — everything yet unknown and unforeseen, yet somehow anticipated. I may not know what this new shift is going to bring, but I suspect: It’s going to be magnificent.

Because it has been, my beloveds, all along; every time until now. Every departed lover was replaced by someone wonderful and better suitable for me. Every old occupation gave room to sometimes humbling opportunities. And the only part that I am obliged to play at this time of loss is to respectfully behold for my departed beloved — to wish him well, for the sake of my own grace — then, to grant MYSELF the time and space to heal; because give it half a phase — and that space will be flooded with the world.

And to quote my favorite sister Olga:

“Oh, dear sisters, our life is not ended yet. We shall live! The music is so happy, so joyful, and it seems as though in a little while we shall know what we are living for, why we are suffering.”

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some naked basking to do.

Love yous. All of yous. (And who said I couldn’t conjugate English pronouns? I just did! MYSELF.)